When pop culture collides with legacy manufacturing, the result can mean chaos.
For decades, the demand for traditional cowboy hats was steady and predictable, driven by working ranchers, rodeo athletes, and a core demographic of western purists. Then came the pandemic. And then came Yellowstone.
Suddenly, everyone wanted to be a cowboy–and the demand for western wear surged.
In a recent episode of Y’all Street, Dustin Noblitt (CEO) and Devin Marcum (President) of HatCo, the parent company behind legendary brands Resistol and Stetson, sat down to explain how they managed a tidal wave of viral demand that strained their supply chain.
The Backlog Crisis
“We had a tremendous backlog,” Marcum admitted to host Tarek Saab.
The surge wasn’t just driven by men; a massive new demographic of female consumers abandoned cheap “fast-fashion” hats and began purchasing premium, traditional fur-felt products. While a software company can simply spin up new servers to meet user demand, scaling physical, handcrafted apparel requires disciplined logistical execution.
HatCo’s 40-acre manufacturing facility in Garland, Texas, was pushed to its limits. To clear the backlog, Noblitt and Marcum had to rethink their operational efficiency, eventually ramping up production to an astonishing 250 dozen fur-felt hats and 150 dozen straw hats every single day.
“If you’re not doing social media, that’s where you’re falling behind… You need to understand the media and how to get that out. The better companies that are doing it well, you’re seeing that their brands are flourishing.”
Devin Marcum
The Global Commodities of a Texas Hat
To scale production, HatCo had to lean heavily on international commodity markets. A true cowboy hat is an organic product that requires complex, global sourcing of raw materials.
“You have your beaver that’s coming from Canada. You have your rabbit fur coming from the Europeans… and Argentine hair, which is a wild trapped rabbit from Argentina,” Marcum explained.
The process of felting—using hot water pressure to twist and interlock these natural fibers—creates one of the strongest textiles in the world. As the “X” rating on a hat increases, the company blends in higher ratios of premium Canadian beaver fur.
However, scaling the summer product line—straw hats—presents a looming, existential supply chain risk. Premium Shantung straw hats are handwoven in rural Chinese villages.
“That is something that isn’t being passed down generation to generation,” Marcum noted. “The ladies who are building those hats, they’re aging out… We’re trying to figure out how we can navigate around that obstacle and be ahead of that game.”
The Media Company Pivot
Scaling physical inventory was only half the battle; HatCo also had to modernize how it sold that inventory.
For nearly a century, the western apparel industry relied on print catalogs and magazine ads. Noblitt and Marcum realized that to capture the new, younger demographic brought in by the cultural zeitgeist, HatCo had to stop acting like a legacy manufacturer and start operating like a digital media company.
“Nobody is looking at magazines anymore,” Marcum said. By shifting capital into short-form social media content, HatCo found a highly efficient way to educate new buyers on how to shape, wear, and care for their products. Rather than paying for sterile corporate ads, they leaned into authentic, handshake-driven partnerships with brand loyalists like Cody Johnson and George Strait.
The Bottom Line
A viral demand shock is a good problem to have, but it can still destroy a company if poorly managed. Noblitt and Marcum proved that by combining blue-collar manufacturing grit with modern digital media strategies, a 1927 legacy brand can successfully reinvent itself for the 21st century.
Watch HatCo executives Dustin Noblitt and Devin Marcum break down the western apparel industry on Episode 27 of Y’all Street.
